Just days before the high-speed rail crash in China I released a blog stating that the clear signs that another Great Leap Forward was taking place in China could be seen by looking at the Three Gorges Dam and high-speed rail. It came as no satisfaction at all when I was proved tragically right just days later.
Below is the original blog quote from a Chinese journalist, written one day after the Wenzhou train collision, arranged into an English poem form by me.
Now, I am certainly no missile expert, neither am I very good at math. In fact I am a self-diagnosed numeric-dyslexic or Dyscalculia. So math certainly isn’t my strong point, but every time I hear the numbers for the Chinese missile threat I have to check myself to make sure I’m hearing it correctly.
So, I’m going to take this opportunity to spell these numbers out slowly to see if I’m getting these figures wrong somehow.
“When a country is corrupt to the point that a single lightning strike can cause a train crash, the passing of a truck can collapse a bridge, and drinking a few bags of milk powder can cause kidney stones, none of us are exempted. China today is a train traveling through a lightning storm. None of us are spectators; all of us are passengers.”
China netizen
Source: www.chinageek.org
It was only last week that I reiterated my point that China is going through a Great Leap Forward in Weapons and the evidence for this can be seen in other high-end projects such as high-speed rail. After the weekends deadly train collision it sadly hits home as a, “I told you so moment.”
Now weibo and the likes are alight with accusations by netizens and finger pointing over who is responsible for this latest disaster. Vice premier Zhang Dejiang, has come forward and lamely announced that those responsible will be punished, refusing to see that it is not any one person that is responsible, but the entire system that demands staggering world-beating achievements in record breaking time. It happened in the Great Leap Forward, it happened on the Three Gorges dam, it is clearly happening in China’s high-speed rail experiment and it is certainly happening in China’s defense industry.
The PLA is heading towards a huge folly of their own making, egged on by the CCP and a Chinese populace that really should know better by now.
Despite the obvious lessons that could be learned from this horrific train crash the CCP will continue to blunder on, rolling a few heads, shaming some officials, but ultimately sidestepping any criticism of itself or correcting this time-honoured glitch in its modus operandi. So, the same mistake will be made in the coming years when an overly, bloated, pumped-up Chinese navy will steam head-long into a calamitous situation that it is totally unprepared for and once again a furious Chinese population will scream out in consternation, “Where is our navy, where is the Shi-lang, our stealth bombers and elite forces”? Just like Groundhog Day, the same mistakes will have been made all over again such as, faulty workmanship, corrupt skimming on materials, under-skilled sailors, corner cutting on safety and a completely unreasonable expectation on performance and the navy will sink or not even manage to leave port. There are so many clear signs that this is happening.
Once again, heads will roll and the CCP will look for people to blame and demand that the population not be so demanding on the military.
Unfortunately, not only can the CCP not stop it, they’re driving the military forward.
George, China argues that the United States should treat it as an equal. For the United States, this seems a step too far. Is this a chasm that can be resolved peacefully?
George: The United States doesn’t treat China as an equal or an unequal, it treats it as China. As a country it has interests and those interests may coincide with American interests or they may not. But the United States, and any other country treats any other country as its interests. In many cases, the problem really is that observers of China have bought into the Chinese view that China is a superpower economically, militarily, politically, and therefore the United States should it treat it as such. But the fact is that China is far from a superpower in any of these realms. It remains a relatively weak economic power and certainly a weak military and political power, and the United States treats it as it is: a significant regional power with a great many weaknesses, and when it threatens American interests, the United States is quite happy to slap it back.
Colin: With the possibility of confrontation between the world’s first and second largest economy troubles many countries in the Asia Pacific region. First of all Japan and Korea but also many nations of Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Vietnam and a resources giant, Australia.
George: Well I mean it’s interesting that they’re troubled. I must admit that I’ve never understood what it meant for a nation to be troubled—I understand people being troubled. Look, there can’t be confrontation militarily between the United States and China. Firstly because the United States is incapable of intruding on mainland China militarily—it’s a vast population, a large army. And China has no naval capability worthy of the name. They have launched their first aircraft carrier. That means they have one aircraft carrier. They don’t have the cruisers, they don’t necessarily have the advanced attack submarines, they don’t have the Aegis defense systems. In other words they’ve launched a ship and now they have to train their pilots to land and takeoff from the ship and the aircraft that take off from the ship have to be able to engage and survive American F-14s. The distance between being a challenge to the United States and having one aircraft carrier is vast and generational. Not only do they have to train the people to fly off the deck, they have to train naval commanders, admirals, to command carrier battle groups, and even more admirals who know how to command groups of carrier battle groups. The United States has been in the business of handling carrier battle groups since the 1930s. The Chinese have not yet floated their first carrier battle group, and one isn’t enough. So it’s really important to understand that while China has made a minor movement in floating aircraft carrier, a technology that is now just about 80 years old—that’s very nice but it does not make them a power.
Colin: Now, financial analysts and economists talk up China as an economic power but at STRATFOR we’re doubters. China has slowed down this year, but do we still believe that Chinese growth is unsustainable?
George: The question of Chinese growth is the wrong question. I can grow anything if I cut profit margins to the bone or take losses. According to the Chinese Ministry of Finance, Chinese profits on their exports are about 1.7 percent, which means that some of these people are exporting at almost no level. The Chinese grow their economy not in the way that Western economies grow that when you sell more products, you make more money. The Chinese grow their economy to avoid unemployment. The Chinese nightmare is unemployment because in China unemployment leads to massive social unrest. Therefore the Chinese government is prepared to subsidize factories that really should be bankrupt because they’re so inefficient in order to keep these companies going. They will lend money to these companies not to grow them but in order to make certain that they don’t default on other loans. So I think one of the mistakes we make is the growth rate of China being the measure of Chinese health. I want everyone to remember that in the 1980s Japan was growing phenomenally and yet their banking system crashed in spite of the fact of having vast dollar reserves. So when you look at the Japanese example you see a situation where growth rates, which Westerners focused on, were seen to be a sign of health when in fact they were simply a solution to a problem of unemployment and underneath it the economy was quite unhealthy. This doesn’t mean that China doesn’t have a large economy, but having a large economy and being able to sustain healthy, balanced growth are two very different things.
Colin: Wouldn’t it be in the interests of both countries to find more common ground, perhaps to work together to make the Western Pacific a zone of peace involving Japan and other countries?
George: Well first of all, there is a zone of peace in that region. There’s no war going on. Secondly, the guarantor that it’s a zone of peace is the American 7th Fleet—the Chinese can’t do anything about it. As for tension bubbling about, so much of this is what I’ll call newspaper babble. Some minister or some secretary says something hostile, something is said—these are merely words. Here’s the underlying fact: China cannot sell the products it produces in China because over a billion people living in China live in absolute poverty and can’t buy it. They’re the hostage to European and American consumers, and their great fear is that those consumers, if they go into a recession, won’t buy those products. The problem the Chinese have is that they can’t invest their own money into the Chinese economy—there’s no room to put it, there aren’t enough workers, there’s not enough land and so on. So they have this massive hangover that they’re willing to invest in the world to get out of China. So there is a very good relationship between the United States and China. The Chinese get to sell products to the Americans; the Americans get these products. The problem the Chinese have is that their wage rates are now higher than those of other countries. It is cheaper to hire workers in Mexico today than in China. Their great historic advantage is dissolving yet they must continue to export. The American desire that the Chinese change the value of the yuan, that they float it, of course will never happen. The Chinese can’t afford to let that happen because of course that would make their exports even more expensive and place them in even more difficult trouble. So the United States enjoys jerking their chain by saying they should float the yuan. The Chinese respond saying that they will do that in a few years as soon as something else happens that’s unnamed. And the Chinese condemn the United States for their naval activities, and all of these are words. These two countries are locked together in a very beneficial relationship. In the long run it’s more beneficial to the United States than to the Chinese, and that’s one of the paradoxes. But again it takes a long time for people to realize that economies have failed or recovered. I remember back in 1993, people were still speaking about the Japanese super-state long after the banking system collapsed. One of the interesting things about the global financial community is that they always seem to be about two years behind reality, and the China situation is that they are in the midst of a massive slowdown. They’re admitting to a certain degree of slowdown—we suspect it’s much more substantial than that. In fact, given Chinese inflation rate, they may be entering negative territory. So this is a country that has had a magnificent run up in 30 years, it is going to be an important economic and military and political power over the next century but for right now it’s got problems.
STRATFOR
A Great Leap Forward in Weapons is taking place in China as we speak with all the trappings of its original disastrous 1950s granddaddy. While every other China pundit seems happy to jump on the Chinese military bandwagon and gush how the PLA is tipping the balance in Asia with its ever increasing array of kit, there seems to be only limited critical thinking about how this may be playing out in a more familiar context according to well known CCP tendencies.
Back in 2010, I first wrote about this new Great Leap Forward in Weapons phenomenon and then published it on this Blog in Feb 2011. You can read the original here. Today, the signs are so glaringly obvious to be undeniable, and it is certain that a testing military confrontation for the PLA will see the wheels of this oversized juggernaut come flying off leaving all the brand new equipment high-and-dry and the Chinese public thinking, “what happened?”
So where is the evidence?
Firstly, let’s be clear, the PLA is not a modern, Chinese multi-national company at the cutting edge of technology and development. It is one of the most insular and secretive organizations on the planet and is riddled with corruption and twisted party politics that stifle true innovation. Anyone who has experienced the inner workings of a Chinese multi-national company will know that their internal mechanisms are hobbled by an opaque array of unfathomable relationships and nuances that are only understood by the few and favour a small group of elites. This is nothing new and hardly surprising; this is the way business has been conducted in China for millennia. Managers and directors are prone to explaining these “behind the curtain” practices as, “Chinese characteristics,” which is a disingenuous euphemism for, traditional, top-down, paternalistic, cronyism in tandem with mainstream, accepted corruption. With such characteristics rife in so-called public companies, which are subject to modern, international accountancy and human resource procedures, there is scant chance that the granddaddy of nepotism, the PLA has been able to escape these debilitating age-old habits.
Admittedly, I’m not offering up any concrete evidence to conclusively prove that the PLA is riddled with all the worst characteristics of guanxi but we can look at similar large-scale sectors and projects in China to see how they have faired. Based on this we should ask the critical question, is it rational to assume that PLA has risen above these problems or is in fact fatally ravaged by them behind closed doors.
Exhibit #1 - The Three Gorges Dam
Described as one of the biggest construction and relocation projects on the planet this gargantuan project could only have been achieved in China and is completely at home alongside other epic projects like the Great Wall and the Grand Canal. In order to complete such a monumental task you need a huge, cheap labour force and a dizzying degree of social compliance from the local population. Needless to say, most people in China, and especially those who lost their homes, were never told of the doomsday scenarios that many international experts predicted about building such a colossal dam. However, Mao had dreamt that it was possible and the CCP deemed that it was to become the crown jewel in the national psyche.
Despite vociferous warnings about the folly of the project from any number of independent, international organizations the project went ahead and all doubters were silenced as either unpatriotic or anti-Chinese. Today the Three Gorges Dam stands testament as the mother of all bad ideas. Rather than preventing flooding and taming the mighty Yangtze, towns downstream suffer its curse even more, either via extreme drought or flood. The electricity output has never met its targets and environmentalists are finally gaining traction in light of the utter devastation the dam has caused. Especially in light of the huge landslides the dam causes upstream, which the planners seemed to have completely over looked. In May 2011, no less than Prime minister Wen Jiabao, “admitted it [the dam] had caused severe problems to the environment, shipping, agricultural irrigation and water supplies.” (Global Times)
Therefore the lessons of the Three Gorges Dam are two-fold,
1) It could only be built in China, a country that has the ability to bulldoze any obstacles, whether human or nature.
And…
2) It could only be built in China, a country that could still blunder ahead with a bad idea despite such obvious failings
The Three Gorges Dam has proven to be about as useful at solving the problems of those who dwell in the Yangzi Basin as the Great Wall was at keeping out barbarians from the north.
So, why did the dam still go ahead?
Well, because it embodies the very heart of a new, rising China; a China that can overcome any obstacle or hardship to achieve its goal. In the end, the vast majority of Chinese can happily overlook that the dam is an unmitigated disaster. What’s important is that it shows what China can achieve; it is the largest and greatest dam in the world. The fact that it has never and probably will never do what it was touted to do is inconsequential. In China, building something and building something that works are mutually exclusive factors that do not need to relate to each other. Building something is a matter of fact that can be objectively stated. Whether it works or not is a matter of degree that is subjective. In a world where this attitude makes sense, China, any number of crazy possibilities can and do occur.
Exhibit #2 - High Speed Rail
High Speed Rail was supposed to be the project where China “got it all right” and proved to the doubters that it could lead the way with its own indigenously developed high-tech system with world-class quality control. Having pilfered the technology from the Germans and Japanese, the Beijing Shanghai line was to be an all-China project of unprecedented scope and size. Behind the scenes, bubbles of disquiet would occasionally rise to the surface such as, “the line had been built to hastily and the bases were going to subside”. However, these voices were quickly silenced once again as unpatriotic or anti-Chinese.
The opening day got off with much pomp and ceremony, with the train bedazzling international journalists and top party officials, but it has been downhill since then. In its first two weeks the rail line rarely worked and has had constant power outages. Conveniently the Party faithful blamed these outages on “teething problems” that were caused by a freak thunderstorm. Admittedly, every big project across the world has teething problems, but what we’re looking at here is something far more systematic than just tiny problems that need to be ironed out. The disastrous first few weeks of the high-speed rail network point to endemic corruption that even the nation’s highest, most prized projects could not escape. As the old saying goes, “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig”. The Party can whitewash over the failures and blame the public for being overly critical and demanding, but in reality the high-speed rail had everything to prove and came up wanting, stinking off burnt wires, dodgy workmanship and the all too familiar smell of corruption. Rumours are now rife that, “builders ignored safety standards in the quest to build faster trains in record time”.[1] Once again, “the shining new emblem of China’s modernization looks more like an example of many of the country’s interlinking problems: top-level corruption, concerns about construction quality and a lack of public input into the planning.[2]
One has to ask, if the CCP can’t get it right with these two national projects that embody the national spirit where can they get it right – in the PLA? Some may believe or hope that it can, but in fact an epic folly of self-deception is taking place within the Chinese Military, just like the Great Leap Forward, the Three Gorges Dam and high-speed rail. The PLA is now subject to enormous pressure, just like the above mentioned projects and it is just not realistic to think that it will be able to escape the same fate.
Here are the key red flags to look out for,
All of these factors were present in the original Great Leap Forward, The Three Gorges Dam and high-speed rail and new PLA pet projects like Varyag, the J-20 and the ASBM ooze with them.
In the next post I will detail more how the PLA is predictably following the same calamitous path.
Question: Could the CCP handle the Dalai Lama situation any worse than it does?
Answer 1. - No. The way that the CCP reacts to the Dalai Lama is a PR train wreck in the eyes of many across the world.
Answer 2. – The CCP needs the Dalai Lama for internal control and management and doesn’t really care whether people in the West get it or not.
So, which answer is right?
Well of course they’re both right.
Through the eyes of a Westerner
Every time Dalai Lama rocks up to another western capital to hob-knob with the latest leader we get to see the worst side of the CCP that is usually kept under wraps and hidden behind their Italian suits and expensive, leather loafers. The shrill condemnations easily crack the all too familiar mask of cool-aloofness that is usually presented to the world on other pressing, global matters. A quick scan through the comments section on the BBC or CNN websites reveals that the same old rebukes get regurgitated over and over again exclaiming that westerners don’t understand China. They know nothing about Tibet and if it’s ok to shout “Free Tibet” then it’s ok to shout, “Free Northern Ireland” or “Free Texas,” which of course… it is ok. Proving the ignorance and banality of their arguments.
Oddly enough, the CCP tries to turn the game back on the west by flirting with the likes of President’s Al Bashir of Sudan and Mugabe of Zimbabwe. However, rather than slam-dunking a feeling of, “Well how do you like it when WE meet people you don’t like?” The entire action falls flat on its face and China comes across as petty, naïve and malign. After all, President Al Bashir, indicted by the International War Crimes Tribunal, was in China on a full state visit to sure up support for his new country and trade Sudanese oil for Chinese arms. Meanwhile the Dalai Lama, Noble Peace Laureate, gets squirreled away to the White House Map room to talk about world peace and Tibetan human rights in a hurried, 45minute slot. No arms deals for Tibetan rebels, no resource and trade negotiations or talk of using the UN veto to protect the Dalai Lama’s next conniving plan to de-stable Tibet and split it from China.
Why such a contrast?
Because this is the reality of the situation. The Dalai Lama is not a separatist rebel leader on a global campaign to usurp the CCP and help the West carve up China, but a religious leader and western icon. The Dalai Lama’s fame in the West does not come from his dogged resistance to the CCP. It comes from teaching Buddhism and writing books on world peace. If the CCP simply chose to marginalize the Dalai Lama and completely ignore any messages he gave on Tibetan human rights then it would quickly fade from the congested newswires and he would be left talking about what he knows best, Buddhism to starry-eyed national leaders.
So, why doesn’t the CCP just blot out any internal news of the Dalai Lama and erase him from the collective consciousness?
Certainly they have exceptional experience in doing this - think Zhao Ziyang.
Simply put, the Dalai Lama, a wolf in sheep clothing, that wants to split China is entirely created by the CCP for internal consumption. The CCP could bury news of his world-wide actions but instead chooses to flaunt it in the face of the Chinese people across state media to prove its argument that the West still has machinations to jealously rip a rising China apart.
So what you have is a circular argument entirely created by the CCP, where the Dalai Lama’s role is pivotal in keeping the loop going,
Without key players like the Dalai Lama and Rebiya Kadeer, the CCP loses significant pieces in its arguments for national legitimacy. This is why they are not willing to let them step out of the spotlight, no matter where they go in the world.
Is it not weird that Admiral Mullen goes to China to meet the PLA and only gets to see Russian made planes?
Why not Chinese made planes?
Why isn't China show casing its indigenous technology?
So, a sailor (Mullen) goes to Beijing and receives economic tax advice from a general (Chen)... Reads like the beginning of a bad joke...
And it would seem that China isn’t so adverse after all to meddling with other countries affairs, despite it being adamant that on one should meddle in its.
All in the space of a week we’ve had Beijing openly backing despot Bashir from Sudan, courting the Libyan Rebels and now the jolly green giant himself, general Chen Bingde is giving economic tips to the US taxpayer. Whatever next?
Quote:
"I know the U.S. is still recovering from the financial crisis," Chen pondered aloud at the joint press briefing. "But it's still spending so much money on its military -- isn't that placing too much pressure on the taxpayers?"
Source CNN
The principle target for this action is Vietnam.
I have been saying for years now that Vietnam will be the testing ground for China’s newfound military might and recent developments in the South China Seas only confirm that it is a matter of when and not if this is going to happen.
Vietnam is the perfect candidate for China’s newfound fascination with military strength and the notion of a limited war.
Firstly, these old foes have millennia of bad blood between them. China’s last foray into war was with Vietnam and because of its size and location China was able to choose the manner of both commencement and withdrawal. Knowing full well that the Vietnamese army neither had the means or the desire to escalate the war into China.
Secondly, these two nations are technically communist “bogey states,” and the West would have no moral justification to stop them mauling each other outside of the usual lame petitions via the UN to respect civilian casualties etc. In fact, some countries might relish the thought of these two old, Commie foes blooding each other.
Lastly, these two Communist states have tight control over their state media, so the inevitable outcomes of any conflict would be that they both started it, they were both the victim and they both won.
These factors are very real in the minds of Chinese generals and this is why the Vietnamese generals, unlike other ASEAN nations, refuse to blink when it comes to dealing with China. They know full well that any sign of weakness could spark a conflict. In contrast, China may put pressure on countries like the Philippines behind the scenes, but it is not going to openly capitalize on any apparent show of weakness through open confrontation. The Philippines is not in the so-called Communist family and to use a kitschy Chinese-style analogy; a father may readily beat his own son for the tiniest of infractions but will think twice before beating someone else’s son, especially if that son has a really big dad.
Whether Vietnam likes it or not, they’re still in the Communist family and therefore subject to its rules and paternal hierarchies. As we have seen, Vietnam is now trying to hastily maneuver into the US shadow and get out of China’s glare. Whatever your thoughts on this, it is undoubtedly motivated by good-ole fashioned Asian pragmatism. Vietnam knows it’s in China’s firing line and it is doing its best to get out of the way, pronto.
In reality though, Vietnam will probably not be able to cement new ties with the US quick enough to avoid another Sino/Vietnamese conflict. It’s military may overstate their hand or China may react before any real ties can be forged, making some form of conflict inevitable. It will also become harder to avoid a conflict if China's internal, economic problems become more grave and stir internal unrest. In a scenario like this, playing the nationalist card will become increasingly more attractive and Vietnam will surely be the recipient.
However it starts, both of them will blame each other for starting it, both of them will win and the world will struggle to find out the real facts.
What is clear is that this conflict will set the tone for the South China Sea for the coming years. In his great piece, China plays its own game as US treads water, Michael Auslin creates a fantastic analogy for the South China Sea as being like a billiard table. Where China is seeking to knock other countries off the table in order to control the rich resources in the area, while trying to appease the US that its beloved freedom of the seas will be maintained intact. Right now, China is lining up the Vietnamese ball to be fired into a "convenient" pocket and its hopes are that the US won’t over react and that other ASEAN countries will quickly get the message that the resources in the South China Seas belong to China. China will share them, but on her terms only.
I think the leadership in Beijing would enjoy Auslin’s billiard table analogy a lot. It is heavily loaded with Chinese intrigue, Sun Tzu’s Art of War and a heavy dose of the CCP’s favorite tactic, plausible deniability.
The "Great Game" of the 21st century has already commenced, only time will tell how it will ultimately play out but a new Sino/Vietnamese war will be one of the opening acts.
“Outside of China’s rapid monetization …. that’s MONETIZATION not modernization, of its land and human capital, how exactly is China’s rise manifested?
Where is China leading the world?
Li certainly seems to think that China’s rise is more than just economic. He alludes to other great qualities of the historical Chinese nation that needs to be openly debated in the modern Chinese nation. This really goes to the heart of the question I keeping asking without getting a satisfactory answer,
Just what is rising China offering?
What does China, the great nation, represent outside of economic mercantilism run by an elite, authoritarian board of aloof directors?
Li and other commentators emphatically refer to China offering an alternative way to the West’s liberal democracy and universal rights but always seem to fall short of suggesting just exactly what that is.
Oddly, Li uses Emperor Qianlong to make his point that the days of Western supremacy are numbered in the face of what he calls a “credible” alternative from a rising China. From where I’m standing, the mistakes of Qianlong certainly are a good lesson for modern day China, but Li has got his simile all topsy-turvy. Rather than the West facing a modern day version of the Qianlong-Dilemma, it is in my view history repeating itself once again with the top echelons of the Chinese ruling elite closing themselves off to what the outside world is offering. This time, instead of it being knick-knacks, today it is the free flow of ideas from other countries that is being sanctioned and held at arms length by the xenophobic Chinese ruling class.
Just as Emperor Qianlong decreed that the great Chinese nation had no need off anything McCartney was offering, likewise it is all too familiar to hear the CCP decree that Chinese people have no need for concepts like, universal human rights, individual freedoms, freedom of the press, freedom of association and freedom of information and anything else that challenges its dominance. According to the CCP, and just like Qianlong, anything that China needs can be found within China’s vast lands and long history.
Qianlong closed the door to trade and sealed China’s fate. Likewise the CCP’s main job these days seems to be closing doors and sealing up cracks to cocoon itself and the Chinese nation from any untoward outside influence it deems polluted. Crazily, the latest Internet search block in China is former president’s Jiang Zemin health! It would seem that there are no limits to the CCP paranoia and rather than learning from Qianlong’s mistake they are exceeding him in his pious, insular tendencies.
We all know what happened to Qianlong and his descendants and it remains to be seen how the princely descendents of the CCP will deal with this new 21st century “fork in the road”.
Open up or close up … what’s it going to be CCP?
Or maybe they can open up some parts of China but keep the majority of it under tight control? Well, that’s been done before and we all know what an unmitigated disaster that was.
Which brings us around to my initial question again. If China is so keen to shutdown outside ideas, what is China offering in their stead? When McCartney turned up on Qianlong’s doorstep with his ships full of 18th century oddities we all knew what the West was trying to peddle and that remains the same today. Writer after writer are happy to spill pots of ink proclaiming that China doesn’t need these ideas to become great. However, the inkpot seems to dry up once it is time to offer the alternatives. Of course Li would proffer that China first needs to confidently debate its great history and treasure trove of ideas and then present them to an expectant world in a coherent way. Which seems to be relying on history a little too much as a means in itself. As the age old saying goes, “history waits for no man”. Likewise the world neither has the patience of the inclination for China to engage in a great debate upon what righteous ideology it wishes to bring to the table. The world is looking at China now and assessing what it stands for NOW, not in the past or the future … NOW.
So, the CCP’s short-sighted policy of, “making China number one by any means,” and then deal with the consequences later really isn’t indicative of a major, future power that has the potential to usurp the West. We are constantly told that the Chinese civilization stands for harmony, benevolent rule and peaceful coexistence, but when we look at the China the CCP has created we see none of these. Do we have to take it on faith alone that the CCP will get around to the “good stuff” just as soon as they’ve quelled all dissent, maximized all profits and utilized all resources in the making of their interpretation of an urban utopia? Until this day comes, you can forget about harmony and peaceful existence… and benign rule? Well, that’s just not practical in a time of national development.
China’s time maybe approaching but look what the CCP is blatantly engaging in as it so vociferously rejects Western values
Are these the factors that make up the CCP's credible, alternative world view?
It reminds me of an old 1980s advert from the US, where an old woman would visit her local fast food restaurant and scream,
“Where’s the beef?”
Insinuating that the burger contained little or no beef. In the case of China, where is China’s beef? What does it stand for? What qualities does the CCP practice at home and export abroad?
That’s an open question… please feel free to answer it
China's foreign ministry is calling for Japan to withdraw its fishing boats from disputed waters in the East China Sea. Meanwhile, Japanese officials are downplaying the issue, and say they are hopeful the two sides can soon hold further discussions on joint cooperation on gas fields in the area.
The official Xinhua news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei as saying Beijing is demanding Japan immediately withdraw fishing boats from the waters around disputed islands in the East China Sea.
The islands are referred to as Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese. The Chinese statement repeated claims the islands have been Chinese territory since ancient times, and that Beijing has what it described as “incontrovertible sovereignty” over them.
The comments came as Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto was winding up a two-day visit to China. A Japanese foreign ministry spokesman, Hidenobu Sobashima, said the two officials discussed the disputed territory, but in general terms.
“Foreign Minister Matsumoto said Senkaku Islands is historically, and also in terms of international law, is an integral part of Japan, and there is no territorial issue to be resolved," he said. "This is the Japanese position. And Chinese Foreign Minister mentioned the Chinese position.”
Despite the apparently entrenched positions on sovereignty, the Japanese spokesman indicated he is optimistic the two sides can move forward on discussing legally-binding agreements on joint exploration of gas fields in the area. He said Japanese and Chinese leaders discussed this at a summit meeting in Tokyo in May.
“Compared with last year, perhaps this year, particularly after the earthquake and after the summit, the atmosphere is more promising than a little earlier,” said Sobashima.
Relations between the two countries sank to a low point last year after a Chinese fishing boat collided with a Japanese coast guard vessel near the islands in September.
Recent polls in both countries have found high levels of mutual public distrust. Peking University International Studies Associate Professor Dong Wang says he believes such negative public opinion only exacerbates the problems in the relationship.
“I think that the management of China-Japan relations will become increasingly more challenging and probably more difficult," he said. "But I think the top leaders from both countries also, in the final analysis, they also understand that China-Japan antagonism does not serve either party.”
Instead, he says, better and more cooperative Sino-Japanese relations will benefit both countries.
